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But seriously, some of us here have put a lot of time and effort into this online project, and would just like to see it to the end………….. whenever that is.

San Diego…that’s close, we are in the Los Angeles/Orange county area. Where do you work and what kind of projects does your company do, residential, light commercial, industrial, institutional, government, ect????????

The fun continues

So, last night, I get out of the shower, take out some cold beer and get ready to watch the basketball game, and my Blackberry goes off. It's my server room telling me the my room has reached 78 degrees F. This means something is terribly wrong. I immediately spring to action and have one of my guys log into my network to begin shutting down the systems while I drive ten minutes to the office. I reached the office and the room had reached 90 degrees, and all non critical systems were shut down.

I checked the coil, it wasn't frozen. I checked the handler, it was running. I turned on my backup high velocity fans to move air around the room and cool it down a bit....then called the install hvac guy to ask what I should do. He had no 24/7 service so he gave me some suggestions and I called my new hvac guys who sent someone out within the hour.

I shut off the AC unit and waited 30 minutes, then I turned it on and went to the roof. I noticed that the compressor fan was turning very slow, and I heard the hmmmm of the compressor as well. I shut the AC off and waitied another 30 minutes, and this time it turned on and cooled my room down.....about 20 minutes later the new hvac guy showed up to test the circuit and see if everything was ok, and it was.....he noticed that my delay switch was set to 0 miutes and he turned it to 5. He said that it will make sure that the compressor always stays off for at least 5 minutes before starting again....we were having rapid and frequent flash and flickers, and the compressor kept on turning on....the guy said it was overloaded and just never got enough juice to start up.....turning it off was the only thing to do, and having the delay switch set to 5 will prevent that in the future.

is he correct??

I turned it down to 3.5 minutes as my room temp swings too much in 5 minutes

Although we can’t tell for sure, just as your late night service angel (technician) can’t tell for sure, based on the fact that neither we, nor he was onsite at the time this was happening, it does sound extremely feasible after the fact.

I’m assuming your posted comment of:

“…we were having rapid and frequent flash and flickers…”

Referred to the main power supplying the HVAC system was experiencing rapid and continual brown outs.

This should also be a wake up call for you to make two calls next time “you spring into action” at your house, or any other offsite place. One, call your co-worker to power down the systems you had him power down, and two, call for the HVAC service company, the one that offers 24/7 service, to meet you at the site ASAP, so as to save your most valuable resource…….time, sweet precious time my friend.

Not that it will matter at this time, but you should give a courtesy call to the service company that installed (and presumably set) the time-delay relay to 0. Not to complain, lets make this a “constructive “ call, but to inform the Service Manager that he might want to explain to the service technician that performed the original work about “quality Assurance”, and what it means to a company like yours on a typical Sunday evening, say before a nice basketball game. Don’t be sarcastic, or overly critical, but just let him know you are calling him because he would most likely want to know how his guys are performing in the field. A call like this, wither well received, or not, will go a long way, prayerfully for “everyone’s” benefit.

Lastly, 3.5 minutes should be satisfactory under the conditions you outlined in the last eight-six pages….lol.

I already ionformed the manager of the switch being set to 0 minutes, we installed it for this reason, obviously so it would be set at something higher than 0....he acknowledged that it was not good....maybe he won't be charging me for the service call, I'll let you know....also, he says he's stressing out over my install since I've been bugging him so much....he's not sure if the order was released. His guy says it was, but it has not been memorialized anywhere.....the fun continues

As the thunder clouds rumble above, I know it's gonna be a long summer.....The power went out in the building on Friday for about 2 hours, but the AC was fine as soon as the power came back on

PS: Very unprofessional of your HVAC service company guy of first, not telling you: ”Sorry for the problem “we” created, of course we’re not going to charge you” and second, that “…he was stressed out for you bugging him…” What about you stressed out for not having the new system installed in a timely manner?

the good news is that the tech who came out last night seemed very, very knowledgable about sever room AC units....he was telling me about the unit I bought and how it operates....phase monitor, and a computer program that monitors and adjusts to room heat load....cool stuff, I just hope my model has all that stuff

what do you think about me installing a 30,000 Watt generator on my roof with a 3 day supply of diesel fuel...auto cut on/off switch, so it'll power my server room and both AC units in case of power outage or just brown outs....I'd love that....living in Florida I will certainly be installing one at my house...my 5000 watt generator sits in my house waiting to be used for the condo during Hurricane season.....wonder how my neighbors will react to the noise

Originally posted by serverroomcooling no, unfortunatly the backup gen for the building isn't tied into my AC or server room....we need to get that done

I'd like to just put a big propane or diesel generator on the roof and have that on standby for my use only....not rely on the building

Are you serious? I can't believe your worried so much about the a/c and not the power... Between hurricanes,lightning strikes,and black/brown outs there it is more chance of a power outtage than your a/c system going out.. I would suggest having that generator put before you have the second new system installed for the sever room.